130 Years Ago Today

Oxford gave us the English Dictionary. Well, it gave us the first volume thereof and we knew the meaning of every word from “a” to “ant”. So, as long as you were anchoring aardvarks to alligators, you were ok but try to alter an appetite, and you were out of luck. And if you wanted to be a zealot for zebras, you had to wait 45 years until the final volume of the first edition was complete! In all, it took 76 years to finish the first edition.

Work has not sped up much since the the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1990. Current estimates are that the third edition will no be completed until 2037, 47 years after it began. Updates are being made every quarter to the OED online, with information on the most recent update available on the OED site, and, as per current estimates, will continue to be made quarterly for the next 23 years.

And you thought your Supply Chain Projects took a long time …